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There is no Human Health without Biodiversity

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Biodiversity impacts us all on so many levels (individual, population, biosphere). Without biodiversity, our health would be in rough shape!

Here are 4 amazing ways biodiversity contributes to our health:

  1. Your body contains roughly 100 trillion microbes such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea and protozoa. They are essential to your survival and play a huge role in your general health and susceptibility to diseases (1,2).
  2. Pollinators’ diversity impacts the quantity, the diversity and the nutritional content of up to one third of the global food supply (1).
  3. Most antibiotics used today are of microbial origin (1,3). Researchers are constantly exploring microbial and plant diversity to find new treatments (1).
  4. Biodiversity plays a major role in mitigating climate change by sequestering carbon. Canada’s national parks alone are storing carbon for which service costs are between CAD$14 billion to 2.9 trillion. Biodiversity is also necessary for resilience of ecosystems, and reducing the risk and impacts of natural disaster (4).

We, as humans, have a duty to preserve our planet’s biodiversity. Biodiversity is resilience and adaptability and without it, there is no future for human health (5).

 

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